Ranch Home Designs
Ranch (also known as; American ranch, California ranch, rambler, or rancher) is a domestic architectural style originating in the United States. The ranch-style house is noted for its long, close-to-the-ground profile, and wide open layout. The house style fused modernist ideas and styles with notions of the American Western period of wide open spaces to create a very informal and casual living style. While the original style of the ranch was very informal and basic in design, starting around the early 1960s, many ranch-style houses constructed in the United States (particularly in the Sun Belt region) were increasingly built with more dramatic features like varying roof lines, cathedral ceilings, sunken living rooms, and extensive landscaping and grounds.
The following features are considered key elements of the original ranch house style, although not all ranch houses contain all of them.
- Single story
- Long, low-pitch roofline
- Asymmetrical rectangular, L-shaped, or U-shaped design
- Simple, open floor plans
- Living areas separate from the bedroom(s) area
- Attached garage
- Sliding glass doors opening onto a patio
- Windows with a large glass area, sometimes decorated with non-functional shutters
- Vaulted ceilings with exposed beams often in combination with tongue and groove roof decking
- Mixed material exteriors of stucco and brick, wood or stone
- Deep overhanging eaves
- Cross-gabled, side-gabled or hip roof